The Woods
by tfm
Summary: If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone. A series of deaths in the forests of New Hampshire lead JJ to question the origin of her fears. Finding the answers may be far more deadly than any of them expect. JJ/H, M/P. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

The Woods

Chapter One

_She's running. Running through the woods. It's getting dark, but somehow she manages to get through without falling, without tripping, without running into the trunk of a tree._

_Jennifer Jareau is eight years old._

_And she is terrified._

_Her life so far had been bright shining balloons, and vibrant butterflies that she could never quite manage to catch. _

_And then she went into the woods._

_They had always warned her against venturing too far. They had told her that the woods were full of monsters. Her eight-year-old mind believed them._

_She hadn't meant to come in this far, she really hadn't. But then she'd seen a Karner Blue, idly fluttering. She had only wanted a closer look. It wasn't until she was deep in the forested thickets that she realized she was lost._

_Then, the noises started. There were creaks and moans, unearthly sounds that Jennifer had never before experienced. The world seemed to shift to complete darkness around her. This wasn't the place she knew, the place she loved. This was somewhere far more sinister._

_She runs._

_She runs, and she runs, and no matter how far she runs, she does not seem to find her way out of the woods. She had said she would return to the house before dark; her parents will be waiting. Waiting for a little girl lost._

_Her eyes are soaked with tears. Now she knows. Now she knows why they told her never to go into the woods._

***

'JJ?' Hotch's voice tore the media liaison from her childhood flashback. She returned her gaze to the rest of the team; they were looking at her with profilers' eyes. Silent analysis, information catalogued for further usage.

JJ shook herself slightly, and turned back towards the projector screen. 'Roxbury, New Hampshire. Eight bodies found in the last two weeks, all with significant cuts and bruises. Local authorities believe that they may have been _hunted_ in the woodland areas.' Her voice was strangely detached; it did not go unnoticed by the other members of the team.

'New Hampshire is second to only Maine as the most highly forested state in the country,' supplied Reid.

'What was the actual cause of death?' Rossi asked, his eyes not daring to leave JJ's.

'Blood loss, caused by significant trauma to the torso. M.E. couldn't determine the source of the trauma.' But JJ knew. She knew she had seen this before. She had seen this all before. It was more than just the world of her nightmares. It had actually happened, hadn't it?

For years, she had thought it was her mind, making up stories. False memories, they would call them. To acknowledge the tragic and unforeseeable death of her father was an event her mind could not fully process, so it had made up a story. Her father had been taken by monsters – because that's all death is in the end. A monster.

'JJ?' It was Emily's voice now, laced with concern. 'Are you alright?' The brunette had not failed to notice the blankness that had overcome JJ's face. Her expression was usually vibrant, even when discussing a case. This JJ was almost dead to the world.

'I'm okay,' JJ assured them. She sat down in the only remaining seat. 'I think I might be coming down with something though.' The lie came effortlessly, though she was unsure of whether or not it had been accepted. If it had, they would probably drop it. If it had not, they would bring up the subject again later, for sure. She knew, at the very least, she could fool Morgan and Reid.

It had been about the woods then too.

***

_She hears her father, calling her. 'Jennifer? Jennifer, where are you sweetie?' His voice seems distant, as if he's calling from a dimension perpendicular to this one. As if he's in another place entirely._

'_DADDY!' On some level, she hopes that her voice can break through whatever mystical barrier that separates them, but really, she's just a scared little girl calling for her father. _

'_Jennifer, where are you?'_

'_I'm in the woods, Daddy. Please help me!'_

'_I hear you, baby. I'm coming to get you, okay? Daddy isn't going to let the monsters get you.'_

_It felt like an age later when she is wrapped in her father's arms. She feels safe, in spite of the darkness, in spite of the howling noises that still echo. A little girl should always feel safe in her father's arms._

'_Okay, Jen, I want you to hold my hand, okay? Never let go.'_

'_I won't.' She grips his hand tightly. She's not letting go. They're walking through the woods, and Jennifer thinks that she can see her grandfather's house in the distance. _Dinner will be ready by now_, she thinks to herself. Mommy had told her that they were having spaghetti tonight. The syllables seem almost lyrical to her._

_Her father's hand loosens._

'_What is it, Daddy?' She looks up (he's much, much taller than his little girl) and sees the look of shock on his face. Then, he lets go completely. He falls, and no matter how hard Jennifer tries to stop it, he hits the ground with a dull thud._

'_Daddy?' Her voice is quivering now. She's leaning next to him. Her fingers touch the spreading pool of blood on his chest. She's seen blood before – tiny cuts and scrapes – but never in this quantity. This idea of human mortality is almost foreign to her. Though she knows of the concept of death, she cannot comprehend how someone can be alive one minute, and dead the next. She cannot comprehend how something so beautiful, so complex, can be snuffed out in an instant._

_She will one day learn that death rarely makes sense. _

_Not really._

***

Hotch sat opposite her on the jet. They had become closer since her break-up with Will – as if they now had something in common, something that they could bond over. The break-up had been both mutual and rather pleasant as far as break-ups went. While they would be lying if they said they hadn't enjoyed their time together, neither party felt the devotion and commitment that was traditionally supposed to accompany long-lasting relationships.

Will had Henry while she was in New Hampshire, and he would return to her care upon her arrival back in Virginia. It was an arrangement that seemed to work for now, but it would have to be amended once Henry started school.

Before he even opened his mouth, she knew that he hadn't bought her lie in the conference room. She suspected that the rest of the team hadn't either, but it was Hotch that was bringing it up. That meant something to her, she realized.

'My father,' she blurted out, before he could say anything. 'He…his death was similar to the victims in this case. And I know it can't be related, but I still can't help but feel…shaken.'

He nodded. 'Just remember, JJ. We're here for you.'

He left the words he really wanted to say unspoken:

I'm_ here for you._

**A/N: Yep, that's right. I started another one. It's a compulsion. A terrible, terrible compulsion. This will be an attempt at JJ-centrism, a concept I've never tried before. Will be JJ/Hotch, and because I can't help myself, Emily will probably creep into prominence at some points, so it could possibly be either Morgan/Prentiss or Rossi/Prentiss, but let me know your opinions. I value them highly before I throw them to the wind!**


	2. Chapter 2

The Woods

Chapter Two

_She's covered in her father's blood when they find her._

'_Jennifer!' It's her mother's voice, but it cannot quite break through the daze that this confused little girl is in._

_Her mother looks for her husband, but cannot find him in any form. It has been nine hours since Jennifer had gone into the woods, eight and a half since her father went in after her. To Jennifer Jareau, it felt like just minutes._

_She doesn't know that time moves differently in the woods. Minutes feel like seconds, hours like minutes, days like hours, weeks like days. Some have escaped from the woods only to find that their entire family is dead, that years have passed. Some have never escaped at all._

***

Hotch decided that ultimately, keeping JJ away from the crime scene was the best idea. If the deaths had been similar to her father's, then the last thing he wanted to do was bring up old memories by sending her out there.

'Morgan, Prentiss,' he instructed. 'Crime scene.' All the bodies had been recovered in the same location, no more than three days apart. The victims themselves had all disappeared from other areas, all of which were near the edge of the woods.

Reid and Rossi split off from JJ and Hotch, taking the list of family's names that had been supplied to them.

'Are you sure you're alright to do this?' Hotch asked. He was always concerned for his team, but it took almost extreme circumstances for him to voice it.

'Yeah, I'm fine.' JJ's voice seemed distant, almost snappy. 'It was a long time ago, Hotch. It threw me at first, but I'm over it.'

He nodded. 'As long as you're sure.'

She smiled at his concern. 'Yes, I'm sure.'

In any case, she found herself changing the subject rather quickly, an event that did not go unnoticed by Hotch.

'Theodore Birmingham, age thirty-six. Disappeared almost two weeks ago. Found dead three days later. We're talking to his wife, Janet.'

Janet Birmingham was still in shock. As she told the Unit Chief and the media liaison, she had lost her first husband from cancer just two years ago. To lose Theodore – Teddy, she called him – seemed almost twice as bad. It was for this reason that she had been, as yet, unable to talk to the police.

'Teddy loved his photography. He went out on his lunch breaks to just take pictures. It made him so happy. And then...oh God...they didn't even find the camera. I wonder...did he take a picture of the man who killed him? What kind of _monster_ did this?'

JJ closed her eyes for just a second, and saw the image of her nightmares. It was seven feet tall, clawed. Fangs dripped with blood-tainted saliva, skin rough as bark. In her mind's eye, she saw those claws rip her father's chest open.

She choked slightly, stepping back. Both Janet and Hotch turned to look at her.

'I...It's nothing.' But she could not stop herself from breaking down right then and there. Cutting her losses, she walked quickly back to the SUV, leaving an anxious supervisor in her wake.

***

_She does not speak. Her mother tries to get her to talk. Her aunt tries. A child psychologist tries. Still, she tells none of them what happened in the woods that day. She knows that they won't believe her; she's at the age where she has just come to the realization that all the monsters her parents taught her about are fake. She knows that they did not believe in the monsters in the woods – they had only tried to convince her otherwise so she would not venture too far._

_None of the numerous search parties ever find her father, but she is already resigned to the fact that he is dead. Her mother does not believe it at first, but after several weeks, she too loses hope._

_The true story of what happened in those woods is known only to Jennifer Jareau._

_And she isn't going to tell._

***

The Chevy Suburban drew to a stop just over a hundred feet from the crime scene.

'It's weird, don't you think?' asked Prentiss as they ducked underneath the yellow tape that cordoned off the area. 'At least four of these bodies were dumped right under the police's nose, and yet they never even saw anyone?'

'A lot of cover,' remarked Morgan, staring into the thicket of trees. With his limited knowledge of flora, he could distinguish elm, maple, oak, and not much else. 'It wouldn't be impossible to get a body to the edge of the treeline and then go back the same way you came.'

'He'd have to know the woods pretty well then. They're not exactly sparse. You think he lives in there?' She squinted her eyes, as if expecting to see some kind of shelter in amongst the trees.

'It's possible, I suppose.' Morgan frowned, and tilted his head. 'Did you hear that?'

There was silence between them as they both listened for the sound again. It came seconds later; a muffled scream.

There were no preliminaries. Both Morgan and Prentiss ran in the direction of the scream. Tree trunks flew past at an alarming speed.

'How far in, do you think?' Morgan asked. Due to the increasing density of the forest, neither could see particularly far in front of them. They heard the sounds again, each the increasing loudness of each scream telling them that they were getting closer.

'No idea...Do you think it's our unsub?' She was not as fit as Morgan, she had to admit, but then, she didn't do a thousand sit-ups every morning.

'It could be,' was all Morgan said. He did not want to get his hopes up. Then, suddenly, the screams stopped. They kept going, though, knowing that the victim could still be alive.

'Wait,' Prentiss called out. 'Wait.' Morgan slowed to a stop, looking at his colleague incredulously. She wouldn't make him stop if she was unable to run any further – not if there was someone in trouble.

'Look around, Morgan.'

He frowned. This did not look like the forest that they had run into. This seemed on the whole, much, much darker.

Neither saw the clawed creature creeping up behind them.


	3. Chapter 3

The Woods

Chapter Three

_Jennifer Jareau is ten years old._

_Her mother takes her and her brother to the park to play soccer. At the edge of the park, there is a small forested area. Jennifer does not go near it._

_Her brother kicks the ball into the woods. Instead of going to collect it, she adamantly sits on the swing and refuses to move. She will not go into the woods. She will not let the same thing happen again._

_Knowing that no-one would believe her, she had tried so hard to convince herself that her adventure in the woods wasn't really. Now, two years on, she almost accepts the lie as truth. There's no such thing as monsters, is there?_

_But still, she won't go into the woods._

***

'JJ.' It was Hotch's voice; she didn't even need to look up to know that he was just feet from her. She had been sitting in the SUV for a little over ten minutes, while Hotch presumably smoothed things over with Janet Birmingham. She took deep breaths. She could count on one hand the number of times in her life she had broken down like that. Jennifer Jareau was a communications coordinator. She did not break down.

'I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me.' The smooth JJ was back. The JJ that gave press conferences, that calmed down victims' families.

Hotch found himself increasingly concerned about JJ's wellbeing. He had known her for almost five years, and had never seen her act this way. He believed her reason for the behavior – she gave him no reason not to – and yet he could not help but feel that there was more to the tale, whether JJ knew it or not.

'Did you want to go back to the hotel? I can do the interviews myself.' But even that prospect was not his primary choice. He knew that he would rather take her back to the hotel himself, to make sure that she was okay. But he couldn't.

'No,' said JJ, all too quickly. She wasn't going to let this interfere with her work.

Hotch nodded. He trusted her judgment.

For now.

***

_Jennifer Jareau is thirteen years old._

_She still has not told anyone what happened in the woods that day. By now, she has dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. Something terrible happened, but it was not supernatural in origin. It was just a tragedy in which a little girl lost her father._

_She still has nightmares. She sees strange, dark things. Terrifying things. Tall beasts with glowing yellow eyes. This, she dismisses as the product of an overactive imagination. Because she isn't a scared little girl. She's fierce, precocious, stubborn. A typical teenage girl._

_But still, she won't go into the woods._

***

Prentiss saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned slightly, and even with the object in full view, she could scarcely believe what she was seeing. The beast did not fit any of her personal constructs, and yet she knew it was dangerous. She knew by the way its teeth glistened, by the way it made her hair stand on end, by the way it crept up behind Morgan, a hunter stalking its prey.

Morgan!

Mesmerized by the sight of the beast, she had not thought to warn her colleague, who remained oblivious to the creature's presence.

'Morgan!' she called his name as loudly as she dared, not wanting to awaken any more strange monsters that might have been lurking the woods. He turned to face her, but it was too late – the creature was already moving to strike.

She was running towards them before she had even processed the events. She had only left herself time for one option. The angle was right that she could take him down without colliding with the beast. She tackled him at the waist, hoping that her body weight and the velocity she had built up would be enough to take down his superior mass.

It was enough, barely.

'Ugh,' she groaned, as she landed atop him. Her hand went straight for her gun, but the creature had already gone. 'I don't know how you manage to do that every week.'

'What the hell, Emily?' He pushed her off of him, confused. As far as he knew, she had just tackled him to the ground for no reason whatsoever.

She got to her feet, weapon drawn. Scanning the forest, she saw no sign of the creature. She twisted her neck. _Goddamn, he's built_, she thought to herself. She'd be sleeping funny for weeks.

'You almost got eviscerated by a...thing.' She could not give a definition to what she had seen. "Thing" seemed as good a description as any.

He narrowed his eyes skeptically. Emily rarely – if ever – lied, but "almost eviscerated by a 'thing'?" That was cause for concern. Then, he noticed the long gash on his arm. To him, it almost looked like a claw wound.

'Thing?' he asked her, satisfied that she was sane for the moment.

'Monster, creature, beast, I don't know. It didn't look like anything I've ever seen. And it's gone now.' No sooner than she had finished, the howling started. Ethereal, unearthly sounds that neither of them had ever heard before.

Morgan drew his own weapon, and looked around.

'I'll tell you one thing,' he said. 'This sure as hell isn't your regular forest.'


	4. Chapter 4

The Woods

Chapter Four

_Jennifer Jareau is seventeen years old._

_She is considered strong by many of her peers, both emotionally and physically. She is considered highly intelligent by her teachers. Her mother is proud of her._

_A friend suggest going on a camping trip, to commemorate their victory in the soccer final, but she declines, citing academic reasons. The real reason is far more sinister._

_Because even after almost ten years, Jennifer Jareau will not go into the woods._

***

Upon finishing their interviews, Reid and Rossi returned to the police station, only to find that they were the first ones back. Their news was not comforting – there was no connection between the victims that they could readily determine, in spite of the small town overlap. All the victims had different reasons for being near the woods – for now, they would have to put victimology down to "crime of opportunity." While this suggested that their unsub was a disorganized offender, the fact that the bodies showed up days later in a specific location suggested that he was organized.

They were not yet fazed – no case was ever textbook. Unsubs did not readily adhere to the rules laid down for them. This killer, they knew, would not be the easiest to profile. Already he – _he?_ – was showing severely conflicted behaviors.

'Having two unsubs wouldn't make sense,' Reid was saying. 'A dominant unsub would never allow the submissive to take control of the situation.'

They threw theories around for half an hour, culminating in Rossi's suggestion of an unsub with Multiple Personality Disorder. Reid flinched almost imperceptibly.

The sound of footsteps told them that JJ and Hotch were approaching. The two distinct gaits were vastly different from those of Morgan and Prentiss.

'Anything?' Rossi asked of his superior.

Hotch shook his head. JJ said nothing.

The rest of the interviews had been difficult for her. She could not get the image of her father's body out of her mind. It taunted her with every question they asked, mocked her with every answer they received.

'I'm going to get some coffee,' JJ mumbled, uncharacteristically. Usually the media liaison maintained a level of clarity in all situations. After a significant glance towards Rossi, Hotch followed. He had known that everything was not alright with JJ, even after she continually maintained her own sanity.

'I think you should take some time,' Hotch told her, pouring half and half into his own coffee cup.

JJ opened her mouth to protest.

'I can see that this case is affecting you, JJ. I'm saying this both as your boss and your friend. Take some time, even if it's just the rest of today.'

She nodded. He was right, after all. Maybe she'd go back to that tiny motel that they'd booked into, run herself a bath, and mull things over.

Just for the rest of today.

***

_Jennifer Jareau is twenty-one years old when she first goes into the woods again. She won't admit it to anyone else, but she's terrified. She walks slowly, heels of her feet not touching the ground. She's ready to run if need be._

_But nothing happens._

_Her heart beats quickly, her breath comes in short, soft gasps, but it's a biochemical response that is preparing her for an event that doesn't come._

_Not yet._

***

They walked for what felt like miles in the direction they came from, but the scenery didn't seem to change. Both are on high alert, guns held tightly. They didn't speak.

Prentiss had torn off her shirt sleeve to wrap Morgan's wound, and now she was increasingly aware of the chill that surrounded them.

'This is really fucked up,' Prentiss said eventually. Morgan stared at her, surprised. He had no recollection of her ever using that word before. 'We definitely should have gotten back to the SUV by now. This isn't just about some claw beast.'

'So, what,' he said. 'You think that the forest changed as well? I mean, sure, it got a little darker, but you think we sort of...changed forests, or something?' He was not being consciously skeptical, but he had to admit – the notion of trees playing musical chairs seemed _very_ off to him. Part of him wanted to believe that they had simply gone the wrong way, and that the strange monster that had sliced open his arm had been just a figment of his imagination.

He had a gut feeling though, that this wasn't going to end well. The forest – the new forest – had a dark, foreboding air, even without the claw beast within visual range.

'Could be a living forest,' suggested Prentiss, with no less skepticism in her voice. This whole supernatural thing was a new experience for her. It would take a few more years of practice before she could use the phrase "living forest" without feeling like a complete idiot.

'Whatever it is,' said Morgan. 'I think we need to focus on one thing: How the hell do we get out?'


	5. Chapter 5

The Woods

Chapter Five

**A/N: Sorry this one took so long. Essays, parents, etc. Thanks for reviewing, and enjoy the reading. Also, please examine the poll on my profile page. It feeds my obsession.  
**

_Jennifer Jareau first explicitly tells another human being about her fear of the woods when she is twenty-eight years old. At their bemused expressions, she makes up a story to explain this fear, knowing that the real one is far more terrifying. Then, of course, she tells them that it was all a joke, and in light of her humiliation of them, they don't press the matter further._

_Because even though she has forgotten the details of what happened that day in the woods, she still has nightmares. Nightmares of things that cannot possibly be real, and yet she knows that they are._

_She does this job, hoping that one day, the human demons will overshadow her own personal ones._

_She is still waiting for that day._

***

The moment JJ got back to the hotel, she stepped into the shower. She had considered a bath initially, but with a bath, there was too much temptation to just lie back and let the water consume her. She hoped that the searing hot water would wash away the events of today. Hell, she hoped it would be strong enough to wash away the events of twenty-three years ago.

But it would never be enough. Realistically, she knew that these demons were something that she was going to have to live with for the rest of her life. What she needed to do though, was work out how to transform it from a parasitic relationship into a symbiotic one. How to make her fears work for her. On the whole though, she thought that her fears were a little more complicated than everyone else's.

She was toweling herself off when she heard her cell phone ring. It was Hotch, according to Caller I.D. She gave a mirthless laugh. He was the one that had pressured her into returning to the hotel, and now he wanted her back? God, he hadn't even lasted half an hour.

'What is it, Hotch?' She tried not to sound irritated, she really did. Sometimes, though, it managed to just slip out.

'_Morgan and Prentiss haven't returned to the station yet. Are they at the hotel?'_

What was she supposed to say to that? "Just let me get dressed and I'll go check it out?" That wasn't the kind of thing you told your boss, even if your boss _was_ Aaron Hotchner.

'I'll call you back when I find out,' she told him, and before he had a chance to protest, she had hung up. She doubted that he would reprimand her for it, and in any case, she would prefer the dressing-down to the potential embarrassment.

She dressed quickly, not bothering to search through her ready bag for fresh clothes. Hotch's request confused her slightly – why would Morgan and Prentiss have come to the motel, of all places? They had both been on the job long enough to know they were supposed to return to the police station.

She was locking the door behind her when she remembered.

Morgan and Prentiss had been at the crime scene.

The crime scene near the woods.

Had the woods taken them, just like they had taken her father?

She shook off the thought. Surely, this couldn't be happening.

Upon their arrival in Roxbury, they had driven immediately to the police station. If Morgan and Prentiss _had _come to the motel, then they would have had to check themselves in. The Behavioral Analysis Unit occupied rooms 14 to 19 of the tiny motel. A quick knock on each of the remaining doors told JJ that rooms 15 to 19 were still empty.

To be completely thorough, though, she checked with reception. 'Have any of my colleagues checked in yet?' she asked, in a slightly impatient tone.

She knew that the motel owner was intimidated by her. She had put that down to her uncharacteristically bad mood, rather than a reflection of her personality.

'No. Just you, ma'am.'

Nodding, JJ pulled out her phone, pressing 1 on the speed dial.

'_JJ?_' His voice was a bag of mixed emotions; strange, for the man who was reputed to have none.

'They aren't here, Hotch. What's going on?'

'_They haven't returned from the crime scene. Neither are answering their cell, but that could be reception. Rossi and Reid are on their way over there now._' He stopped, as though there was something that he wanted to ask her, but couldn't quite work up the courage.

'Can you come pick me up?'

'_Ten minutes_,' was the reply.

***

The first thing Reid and Rossi saw upon pulling up to the crime scene was an empty SUV. It sat there menacingly, almost an omen of bad things to come. There was no sign of Morgan or Prentiss. No sign of any violent disturbances.

'Footprints,' commented Rossi, noticing the fading marks in the dirt. 'Two pairs of boots. One bigger than the other.'

'Morgan and Prentiss,' concluded Reid, examining the impressions himself. 'They walked to this spot, and then started running.' He followed the trail of the prints. 'Into the woods. What would have made them run into the woods?'

'They could have seen something,' suggested Rossi. 'Or maybe heard something. But then that means that whatever they heard or saw kept them in the woods for almost five hours.'

There were two alternative hypotheses, that neither Rossi nor Reid were willing to voice just yet: 1) that Morgan and Prentiss had gotten lost in the woods; or 2) that they had been taken by the unsub.

'You're not afraid of the woods, are you Reid?' asked Rossi, edging closer and closer to the treeline. His voice did not consciously take on an ominous tone, but still, for some reason, the words made Reid shiver.

'No,' he said. 'No, I'm not afraid of the woods.'

***

'I think we should stay right here,' said Prentiss eventually. There had been a strange silence between them for several minutes, as they both pondered the events, and the possible courses of action. 'Walking around when we have no idea where we are isn't going to help, and at least this way we can keep an eye on what's going on around us.'

Morgan opened his mouth to argue. He preferred to take a more proactive approach to the situation. Prentiss, however, cut him off.

'What do you suggest, Morgan? Run around in circles trying to find an exit that we both know isn't there? Cutting down every tree within sight? There's nothing else we can do. The ball isn't in our court.'

As if on cue, the ambient howls that they no longer registered ceased. The silence was almost deafening in comparison.

'Something's happening,' said Morgan, somewhat unnecessarily. He stepped a little closer to Prentiss, putting a hand on her arm. Whatever _was_ happening, they didn't want to get separated.

'You see that?' murmured Prentiss.

'See what?' Morgan squinted, and after a few seconds, he saw it too.

The trees were closing in on them.


	6. Chapter 6

The Woods

Chapter Six

**A/N: Sorry about the long wait. Insert excuses here about other stories, and essays and having to visit parents and whatnot. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Muchos gracias to WCD; she knows what she did.  
**

JJ's hair was still wet when Hotch drew up outside the motel. His call had interrupted her drying off period, and she was pretty sure that clothing stuck to wet skin in places. Hotch didn't seem to mind. In fact, he looked almost relieved to see her.

'Rossi called. Empty SUV at the crime scene. No signs of a struggle. They're going into the woods to check it out. I think. Reception wasn't that great.'

JJ straightened immediately. 'Are you sure that's a good idea?' she asked. The tone of voice she had adopted for the question made Hotch take his eyes off the road briefly, just to look at her.

'Is there something going on?'

She shook her head. This was just some childhood nightmare rearing its ugly head. This couldn't be happening again, if, indeed, it had even happened the first time.

It couldn't.

...could it?

She bit her lip. This was what she'd always been afraid of. All those fears, all those doubts. Jumping out and interfering with the way she did her job.

'No,' JJ said eventually, and she knew that it didn't take a profiler to see that she was feeling agitated, at the very least. 'Yes. Maybe. I don't know.'

'I'm here for you, JJ. I wasn't just saying that. Just because I'm your boss doesn't mean-' He stopped, realizing just how unprofessional that had sounded. 'Doesn't mean I can't be there as a friend,' he finished, his voice losing none of its composure.

JJ gave a smile, but her heart wasn't really in it. 'Thanks Hotch. Seriously, that means a lot to me.'

But still, she wondered if his support would be enough.

***

Rossi hung up his phone, staring into the darkness of the forest. He thought it best that they inform Hotch of their intentions, lest they too disappear into nothingness. Morgan and Prentiss were not idiots – if, after a while of searching they found nothing, it would be clear that something out of the ordinary had occurred.

'Morgan?' Reid called loudly, after they had made it a short way in. 'Prentiss?'

The only reply was a long howling sound, that didn't sound like any animal either of them had ever heard.

'It's a strange looking forest,' commented Rossi, staring at the trees around them. It had started off as a fairly standard looking forest, a myriad of greens highlighted by the afternoon sun. Now, the sun was almost completely hidden from view by the canopy.

It was almost as though they were in another world.

They were almost ready to turn back when they heard the yells. Panicked yells. Panicked yells that most definitely sounded like Morgan and Prentiss. Whatever was going on, it sure as hell wasn't run-of-the mill.

***

They couldn't run. The trees surrounded them; no matter which way they went, it would be a death-trap. It seemed their only safety net was their service weapons, and they had absolutely no idea how a 9mm bullet would hold up against some fantastical forest monster.

Their bodies were pressed up closely, unwilling to stray more than a millimeter away from each other for fear that they would be separated permanently. Their efforts were to no avail, it seemed. Prentiss felt something solid pressed up against her thigh.

'Morgan,' she whispered. 'Please tell me you're just happy to see me.'

He looked almost embarrassed at her insinuation, his expression changing to fear when he felt the long, rough object snake between them.

'Is that a branch?'

She didn't have time to respond, however, as the branch tightened around her midsection, squeezing the breath out of her.

'Shit!' yelled Morgan, levelling his Glock at the tree that had just ensnared his colleague. Out of sheer panic, he let off two shots at the trunk of the tree. That, however, just seemed to make it angry. Morgan saw the pain in Prentiss' eyes as the branch squeezed. He could have sworn that he heard at least one rib break.

'Morgan...' she managed to say, though it was with great effort.

'I'll get you out of this!' He was yelling, though he didn't even realize it.

'No...Morgan.' She wasn't concerned about the tree branch that had now broken at least four of her ribs, and, she suspected, her collarbone. She was concerned about the eight foot tall monster that was taking advantage of Morgan's distraction to sneak up behind him. If she couldn't warn him, he'd be disembowelled within a matter of moments.

'Behind you!' she yelled, finally, though it took all her strength to do so. As if it had been some sort of test, the tree dropped her. She landed painfully on the forest floor.

The clawed creature was still advancing. Morgan had fired two shots at it, neither of which had had any effect.

Prentiss scrambled to find her own weapon, scattered in the leaf litter somewhere. With her good arm, she lifted it, body shaking.

Morgan gave a yell of pain as the creature swiped across his torso. He dropped his gun in shock.

Prentiss' next two shots missed, aim effected by the aching of her broken bones.

'Morgan! Prentiss!'

Her head shot up. That was Reid's voice.

Reinforcements had arrived.

But she wondered if it would even help in the slightest.


	7. Chapter 7

The Woods

Chapter Seven

**A/N: ty to wcd**

JJ paced the police station impatiently. It was almost dark, and Reid and Rossi had not returned from their reconnaissance of the crime scene. There were now four agents lost in the woods, and if JJ's suspicions were correct, then the woods were the last place any of them wanted to be right now. Hotch was on the phone with Garcia, as the technical analyst ran traces on the cell phones of their four missing agents. He wasn't optimistic; cell reception in Roxbury, New Hampshire was sporadic at best.

JJ tried her best not to listen to the conversation. Her eyes focused on the carpeted floor. If there really was something…supernatural going on, then there was a fair chance she had, for all intents and purposes, killed four of her colleagues and friends. It was not a comforting thought.

She jumped at the sound of Hotch snapping his cell shut. There was an indecipherable look on his face; even more indecipherable than usual.

'No luck tracing the cells,' he told her. She nodded, trying not to betray the fear she was feeling. Hotch hadn't finished, though. 'I also had her look for similar cases in surrounding towns. One particular case stood out.'

JJ's heart skipped a beat.

'Why didn't you tell me that your father was killed in a New Hampshire forest, JJ? That his killer was never found.'

JJ was not quite sure how to respond to the question. There was a disappointment in his voice that was rarely, if ever directed towards her.

'It was twenty years ago, Hotch,' she said shakily, fully aware that she was about to tell him the whole story. 'In Benton. Two counties over. My grandparents lived there. I was eight years old, playing near the edge of the woods. I ran in, for some reason. I can't even remember why. I got lost. It felt like days, but later...they said it was only nine hours. My father found me, and then...then he died.'

Hotch furrowed his brow. It wasn't the most informative conclusion to the story, but he could see that remembering the event had shaken up JJ considerably. He put a hand on her arm.

'What do you remember, JJ?' he asked, softly.

JJ straightened. His hand was warm, and it felt _right_. 'I don't know,' she whispered. 'I have these memories, but they're so dark...they can't be real. I can remember seeing the blood drip from his chest. The look on his face. The look on _its_ face.'

This answer was met with a frown from Hotch, one that he tried to suppress. '"It?"' he asked.

'It was seven feet tall, at least. Long claws, dripping with blood. Always dripping with blood. It killed my father, and left me there, screaming.' She shook her head. 'I can't even remember if that's what happened, or if that's what my nightmares made me remember happened.'

Hotch took a deep breath. Her revelations had made what he was going to say next even harder. 'We have to go out there.'

***

It was a very strange sight, Rossi reasoned, and that was saying something. David Rossi had seen a lot of strange things in his career. Serial killers cuddling up with six-year-old girls. Good people driven to the point of madness. This, without a doubt, took the cake.

He saw one of his colleagues dropped to the ground by the tree that had been restraining, her and the other jumped by a seven-foot tall clawed monster. He saw Prentiss fire twice at the monster, both her shots missing. He spent several precious seconds enthralled by the scene.

'Hey!' he called out, if only to distract the monster's attention. That, coupled with Reid's presence seemed to send the creature spiralling into doubt.

It ran.

Rossi fired two shots after it, positive that at least one hit. He wasn't going to pursue it, though. Not when both Prentiss and Morgan were injured.

'I'm fine, man!' Morgan said, at Reid's attempts to help him up, but Rossi could see that the profiler was anything but fine. There were three long gashes in his chest; deep wounds that were already staining his t-shirt red. He was still alert, though, which was more than could be said for Prentiss.

'Emily. Emily, can you hear me?' Her eyes were shut, her teeth gritted with pain. 'Tell me where it hurts.'

She blinked slowly, opening her mouth, and flinching at even that slight movement.

'Ribs,' she whispered eventually, voice rasping. 'Clavicle.'

Rossi turned to Reid with a questioning look. 'Broken ribs could result in pain with breathing or with movement. Clavicle too has pain with any movement, in addition to swelling, possibly nausea, dizziness and spotty vision due to this extreme pain.' As if in response to this statement, Prentiss rolled slightly to vomit her stomach contents onto the ground beside Rossi's shoes. The resulting stabbing pains that shot through her body caused a load moan.

Morgan was at her side within a second. 'We're here, Em. It's going to be okay.' He didn't want to touch her, for fear of exacerbating the pain. Instead, he settled on sitting beside her, making sure that if she needed anything, he was there.

'What happened?' asked Rossi.

Morgan frowned. 'You didn't see the crazy monster that was trying to rip my chest open?' He emphasised the word "trying", as if he wasn't losing blood rapidly.

'So you're saying that there are monsters in these woods.'

'Not only that,' said Morgan dolefully. 'But the woods themselves are pretty fucked up too.'

Rossi raised an eyebrow.

'I dunno, man,' said Morgan, shifting his position. He felt light-headed, his mind fuzzy. 'But this...this really, isn't...' His eyes rolled backwards in his head, and he slumped to the ground beside his injured colleague.

'That wasn't from blood loss,' said Reid, frowning. 'Do you think there was some kind of poison on the beast's claws?' Reid was sounding far more excited than he had any right to.

'I have no idea,' replied Rossi bluntly. This was a new and strange situation, and he didn't like it.

He didn't like it at all.


	8. Chapter 8

The Woods

**A/N: Okay, this one is a birthday present to Windy City Dreamer, who got to choose my next update, and she chose this one. I guess that also mean that I **_**probably**_** shouldn't kill anyone this chapter. Probably.**

Chapter Eight

They drove in silence. Hotch was carefully avoiding the subject at hand, not wanting to upset JJ any further. He was teetering on the precipice between supervisor and friend; right now though, he knew she was in greater need of a friend. And sometimes, friends have to take a step back.

For JJ, every second felt like an hour. She desperately – _desperately _– needed to get to that crime scene. To reassure herself that there was nothing dangerous (beyond an unsub) in these woods. That Morgan, Prentiss, Reid and Rossi were just standing around waiting for her and Hotch to get there. Then they'd all have a good laugh, and get Chinese food for dinner.

She knew that was just wishful thinking. She knew in her gut that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong today, and that with just a single sentence, she could have prevented it.

How much blood was on her hands now?

She tried closing her eyes, but that just subjected her to the horrors of imagination. Blood stained corpses. Dead eyes staring up at her – blaming her. She could see the tears in their clothing, the deep, jagged claw wounds. They were dead, and yet, they were still speaking.

'JJ,' Reid's corpse moaned. His head was barely attached to his neck, a deep wound across his neck. She wondered how he could talk with a wound like that. Then she remembered that he wasn't supposed to be talking at all. 'JJ, why did you do this to us? Why did you kill us?'

'JJ.'

That was Hotch's voice, wasn't it? What was he doing there? He wasn't in the forest; he was there with her, in the SUV.

'JJ!'

Oh.

Her eyes jerked open, and she tried like hell to keep her face blank, but without result. There was no hiding from Hotch. He said nothing.

'What if they're dead, Hotch?' she asked him fearfully. 'What if I killed them?'

He didn't answer.

He couldn't.

***

Rossi was keeping guard, eyes darting about, as Reid examined the unconscious Morgan and the barely conscious Prentiss.

Prentiss had all but threatened to kill him if he didn't check on Morgan first, so the terrified young genius did so, trying fervently to ignore the labored breaths Prentiss was giving beside him.

He shrugged off his vest, using all the strength he had to tear it into strips. There were no facilities with which to clean the wound, nor did they have any way of drawing the poison out, if indeed there was any poison. All he could do was try and stop the bleeding, and hope like hell he wasn't making the problem worse.

'How is he?' murmured Prentiss, words slurred by the combination of pain and near unconsciousness.

'He needs medical attention,' said Reid hesitantly. It wasn't technically a lie, but nor did it address the actual status of Morgan's health. He didn't need to have an eidetic memory, a copy of _Gray's Anatomy_ and a couple of hours of spare time to know that it didn't look good.

Having dealt with Morgan's wounds as best as he could, Reid edged over to Prentiss. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was still conscious from the way she bit her lip to keep her mind off the rest of the pain.

'I'm going to splint your arm, okay?' Reid said gently, after having ascertained that the clavicle was, in fact, broken.

'With the evil wood?' The pain she had been trying to hold back became evident, as her words came out with a choked half-sob.

Reid frowned. She had a point. The only thing nearby that could be used for splinting was the wood of the trees that had caused the damage in the first place. The trees were, for lack of a better word, calm, now. They weren't trying to kill anyone now, but the damage had been done.

'We need to find a way out of here,' Reid whispered to Rossi as he stood. Both of their colleagues were in need of immediate medical assistance, a fact which had not escaped Rossi. Nor, it seemed, had the fact that finding a way out was probably more difficult than it sounded.

'They were in here how long, without finding a way out?' Rossi wondered aloud. 'I'd say the decision as to whether or not we leave these woods alive isn't up to us.'

***

Hotch's heart dropped as he saw the two empty SUVs sitting a little way away from the deserted crime scene. It wasn't car trouble, or cell reception, or any one of those tiny problems that could have made things seem worse.

It was one thing knowing that his agents could very well be in mortal danger. It was another knowing that if the outcome was negative, he would probably lose JJ as well. She had blamed herself for Reid's abduction at the hands of Tobias Henkel – and Reid had made it out of that alive, if somewhat changed. If someone died today, then he didn't think he would be able to bring her back from the edge.

A quick look around told him that the crime scene was actually deserted. This was not the news he wanted.

JJ got out of the SUV, seeing the almost crestfallen look on Hotch's face.

'Are we going in?' she asked nervously.

'We're going in.'


	9. Chapter 9

The Woods

Chapter Nine

**A/N: My muse decided to go on strike, due to long hours and not enough compensation. I used the back-up muse for this one, so hopefully it's up to standard, but if not, send a message to stimulate the muse back into action.**

JJ felt the world shrink around her as she stepped into the woods. It was a perceptual thing – they were still the same woods that they had always been.

Right?

They both had their weapons drawn, and if JJ were to admit it to herself, she was a little jumpier than usual. If a troupe of Girl Scouts were to have walked out from behind the nearest tree, she probably would have started firing before she's even registered what was going on. That was the main reason why her gun was pointed towards the ground – the last thing she wanted to do was shoot one of her colleagues.

She tried not to blink. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw horrific things. Her father, dead. Her friends, dead. Hotch, dead. She was grateful for the Unit Chief's presence. Though she would take a long time to admit it, she was glad that he was helping her through this. He always seemed to be there, lately. It almost terrified her to realize that if she had caused the deaths of her colleagues today, then Hotch would never speak to her, never trust her again. It was a loss that would pain her more deeply than she had ever known.

It was dark in the forest.

Dark, and strangely quiet. At the very least, they should have heard animals scurrying about, insects buzzing. Something other than this eerie silence.

'Hotch,' JJ whispered.

He turned to face her, though she saw his eyes occasionally jump back to the woods around them. She couldn't read his expression. She had more profiling experience now than she did five years ago, but Aaron Hotchner was sometimes the enigma to end all enigmas.

'Do you feel it?' she asked, still not daring to raise her voice. On some level, she felt that things would turn to hell if she made a loud noise.

He gave her a small nod – which came as a surprise to JJ. She would have expected him to keep his feelings under wraps.

'It's getting darker,' JJ said. She closed her eyes, and let the evil wash over her. She felt twenty years worth of horror, twenty years worth of pain and fear. All reduced to this moment.

Hotch narrowed his eyes. 'I think there's something up ahead.' He desperately wanted to do something to help JJ, but at the same time he knew that his efforts would be futile. He could guide her, but ultimately, she had to work through it on her own.

'Hotch?' The sound of Rossi's voice echoed. JJ straightened. The sudden sound had awakened the woods, surely. Any moment now, they would all be ripped into pieces. Any moment now.

Nothing happened.

***

Rossi tightened the grip on his gun. He wasn't quite sure as to the extent of the woods' abilities. Prentiss' voice had been so full of pain upon the retelling of events that Rossi had quieted her barely a sentence in. He wouldn't put it past this fucked up place to cook up some kind of hallucination of Hotch and JJ.

When he saw the looks on their faces though, he knew it was really them. The woods would have to get up earlier than that to defeat David Rossi.

JJ's eyes darted from Morgan and Prentiss to Reid and Rossi. Morgan was still unconscious, while Prentiss was drawing closer and closer to it.

'Is he dead?' she asked, choked voice barely able to hold back the tears. She'd killed them, she couldn't help but think. She had withheld information, and now Prentiss and Morgan were going to die.

'No,' Reid answered softly, but it was evident to all present that he was trying hard to convince himself of the truth of his own assessment.

JJ knelt between her fallen colleagues. The blood had seeped through the make-shift bandage on Morgan's chest. His breaths were coming in short and fast. He was fading. Prentiss' eyes flittered open at the movement.

'Hey,' she croaked, hissing at the agony that accompanied the greeting. JJ's eyes scanned the other woman's body, noting the awkward angle of the arm, and the way it seemed to pain her to even breathe.

'The woods did this to you, didn't they?' asked JJ, fearful of the answer she knew she was going to get. She had seen these injuries before, only they were on her father's body.

Prentiss nodded, though the non-verbal gesture was no less excruciating than the verbal. She gave a moan at the pain that ripple across her upper torso. JJ could not help but look into her eyes – see the fear, the pain; all the things that would have normally been protected by barriers. What was not there, but JJ chose to see anyway, was the blame.

Screaming eyes telling the media liaison that this was all her fault.

Hotch sensed JJ's hesitation. He put a hand on her shoulder – the kind of physical intimacy that he rarely showed.

They were all in the woods. It was just a matter of finding a way out.


	10. Chapter 10

The Woods

Chapter Ten

Morgan was sitting in the middle of a field.

That was the first warning sign.

He had been in the woods only moments ago – why was he in a field now?

It wasn't real. That much he knew already. And yet, it wasn't a dream either. It felt as though he was in some kind of limbo, hovering between two states of being. He hoped fervently that he wasn't actually dead, though it was beginning to seem likely. He wasn't ready for death.

'Hello?' he called out, listening to his voice echo. Echo. He frowned. There was nothing in range for his voice to echo off of. Still, he shouldn't expect a dream world to follow the laws of science and nature to the letter.

He heard voices. Muffled voices, as though there was someone speaking from behind a heavy door. He couldn't quite make out the words.

The woods.

What had happened in the woods?

Trees. Pain. Emily.

Emily.

He called out her name, hoping that his last memory was some cruel trick that his mind was playing on him. Seeing the tree pick her up as though she was a rag doll. He could still hear the splintering of her ribs. Still see the look in her eyes.

It made him physically sick to even think that she might be dead.

'Emily?' he called out again, and again, there was no reply. All he heard was the muffled voices.

He touched his chest. There had been blood there not long ago. Three long gashes running from his shoulder to his hip. There was no blood. No real pain; just a dull ache that seemed more a memory than anything else.

'Morgan?'

He started at the sound of his name. The voice was still muffled, but at the very least, he could discern what was being said, and who was saying it.

'Where are we?'

All of a sudden, she was standing right next to him in this vast field. Though he knew she had been badly injured the last time he saw her, now, she seemed more confused than anything else. As though this was the last place she expected to be. He didn't blame her.

Looking around, Morgan shook his head. 'I have absolutely no idea,' he said.

***

'She's unconscious,' announced Reid, having been tasked with watching over their wounded agents. There wasn't much else that could be done without medical facilities.

'It's probably for the best,' said Rossi matter-of-factly. At least unconscious, she wouldn't need to worry about the excruciating pain.

The woods hadn't made a move in over an hour – not since Rossi and Reid had intervened on Prentiss and Morgan's attack. JJ was growing anxious – she knew that the reprieve couldn't last much longer.

All eyes were on her.

She should have been used to this. She was the communicator of the team. She did the press conferences, liaised with the other LEOs. She could handle three of her colleague in the middle of the woods.

She took a deep breath.

'I have no idea what's going on,' she said bluntly. 'I…I have these flashes of events that might be significant, but I can't even tell if the memories are real or not. I don't know what to do.'

Hotch still had his hand on her shoulder, forgetting about any sort of protocol that might have forbidden the action. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered, tears in her eyes. The words were for his eyes alone; she felt as though she had betrayed his trust by not revealing what she had known. And that, upon the guilt of knowing she could well have caused the death of her friends. That was enough to send any person into a complete breakdown.

But Jennifer Jareau wasn't just any person. She dealt with unspeakable horrors every day. She could deal with this.

Hotch simply smiled, pained though it was. The small gesture was enough to give JJ some confidence. Confidence that maybe the situation wasn't completely fucked up after all.

And that's when the woods struck.

The tree branch had been curling closer and closer towards them, until, while the team was distracted, it struck.

Reid gave a small yelp, drawing their attention back to the matter at hand.

For a moment, everything was still.

The branch had pierced Reid's torso just below the right shoulder. With horror, JJ realized that it had punched a hole clean through the – admittedly rather skinny – genius.

Her heart skipped a beat, as she waited for the tree to tear him to shreds, or to pull him backwards into the darkness. She, Hotch and Rossi had all leveled their weapons at the tree, an automatic response to a potentially irredeemable situation.

Reid opened his mouth to speak, only the voice that came out wasn't his own.

'You have invaded my home,' the voice said; it was deep, and scratchy.

JJ's face twisted into an expression that was a mixture of confusion and surprise.

She wasn't expecting _that_.


	11. Chapter 11

The Woods

Chapter Eleven

'Limbo?' suggested Morgan. If he'd had a ball, and a wall to bounce it off, he would have been doing that, the repetitive motion cathartic. Just sitting there talking seemed…lacking.

'They say that having the power to name something gives us power over the thing itself,' Prentiss said in reply. It wasn't exactly the answer that Morgan was expecting. 'Do you think that's true?' she added, after a few moments of silence.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean…even if we knew where we were, would it change anything? We'd still be stuck here, with no way out.' She shrugged, staring up at the clear blue sky. It didn't seem real. It was too perfect, too uniform. Even if they hadn't already known, it would have been enough to tell them that it wasn't real.

'Love the optimism there,' he said, half smiling.

'I don't feel dead. I was in a lot of pain before, but it didn't feel like dying. I don't know. What is dying supposed to feel like, anyway?'

Morgan's half-smile slowly transformed into a grin. Prentiss amused him sometimes; she had a propensity to either keep everything completely bottled away, or blurt out far more than she had originally intended to. It was a social awkwardness that he found endearing.

'I mean,' she continued. 'We have so much experience with death, and yet in a way, hardly any at all. I'm pretty sure this is the closest I've come to seeing the white light, choir of angels thing. I'm rambling, aren't I?'

'Yes,' replied Morgan, unable to repress the chuckle that accompanied his reply.

'I think it's a defense mechanism,' she said, shrugging. 'Compartmentalization only goes so far.'

'Yeah, well.' He grasped her hand, letting their fingers intertwine. 'We're in this one together.'

***

JJ stared at the possessed Reid, saying nothing. Even if she could bring herself to talk, she wouldn't have said anything. As insane as it sounded, the ball was in the tree's court.

'Your people have destroyed my heritage_._'

JJ frowned. "Your people." What did he – _she? It? _– mean by that. Her family? The team? The human race? She stepped forward slightly, hyper-aware of Hotch's right hand on her back, his left gripping the weapon that was angled towards the tree.

The tree shook its limb slightly, causing Reid's body to move limply, like a broken rag doll.

'Our people…you mean humans?' JJ asked cautiously. The last thing she wanted to do was incite violence. Things were screwed up enough already. Not to mention the fact that they would definitely lose any battle. Guns weren't going to be any help, no matter how much comfort they gave.

'Yes.' The tree spoke through Reid again, in that eerie, scratching voice, sounding as though the young profiler's vocal chords had been put through a blender. 'You are but a young species, and yet you wish to believe that the world is yours for the taking. There are far older beings here that would have that you believe otherwise.'

JJ tensed slightly. Monsters she could deal with. Depraved serial killers she could deal with. Pedophiles, rapists, arsonists. She could deal with all of that. But a species of sentient trees that had been on Earth for millennia? That was stretching the boundaries of belief just a little too far. What was next? Rocks from outer space?

'So you're killing people?' JJ asked bluntly, though it was more of a statement. That revelation stung more than anything. Her father had died – her friends were _dying­ _– because these trees were all about teaching mankind a lesson.

'Our observations tell us that violence is the only way in which your people learn. Indeed, your friends sought to do us violence before even considering negotiation.' The branch shook again, drawing JJ's attention to Morgan and Prentiss. Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see the slow rise and fall of their chests. This wasn't quite a catastrophe. They could still all get out alive.

JJ fumed silently. Angry though she was, logic overrode that urge to start yelling.

_That's it JJ. This is just another case. Staying calm gets you out of this alive. Negotiating gets you out of this alive._

'We don't want to do you any harm,' said JJ softly. Calmly. 'We would just like to take our friends and leave. We won't bother you again.'

The tree laughed, and JJ's hair almost stood on end. It sounded like fingernails on chalkboard, multiplied by ten to the power of creepy as hell. But what the tree said after it had finished was far more chilling:

'I'm afraid it's far too late for that.'


	12. Chapter 12

The Woods

Chapter Twelve

'How long have we been here?' yawned Emily, leaning her head against Morgan's shoulder. The place felt as though it was boundless in time and space. Sitting around doing nothing could get a little tedious.

'Hours?' suggested Morgan, and then, just a little bit more fearfully, he added. 'Days? Years?'

'We could wake up in a million years,' said Emily gloomily. 'With an electricity bill for one hundred and eighty billion dollars because someone left a single light running in the bathroom.' She sighed, and suddenly gripped his hand a little tighter.

Morgan raised an eyebrow. He wasn't quite sure what the reference was, and he didn't want to ruin the moment by asking. There was a certain tranquility to the silence, just sitting there, bodies entangled…

Whoah.

Whoah.

What was he thinking?

Emily was his friend. His buddy. He didn't want to go and ruin that by thinking inappropriate things about her. That was the problem with high adrenaline situations. A greater propensity for unintended romantic consequences. But then, he could definitely do a lot worse.

'Come on,' he grinned, trying to push back those awkward thoughts. 'First thing you'll do when we get back to the real world. I could really go for a pizza.'

'Oh, that sounds good,' said Emily, perking up slightly. 'And then we could spend all night watching old Z-movies…But nothing with killer trees in it.'

We.

She said _we_.

Despite the circumstances, Morgan found his heart swelling with joy. Maybe something good could come of this after all. But only if they got out of there alive.

***

The trees had subsided again, for the moment. The things seemed to thrive on being completely unpredictable. On being menacing one moment, and completely absent the next. The moment the limb shook Reid to the ground, JJ had rushed to his side. Surprisingly, the young profiler was still conscious.

'What…what's going on? JJ, what happened?' His voice was high-pitched, the way it usually got when he reached the point of hysteria. Surprisingly, that occurrence was usually related more to social situations rather than case-related action. Of course, bleeding to death in a haunted forest was one of the exceptions. They were all on edge. At least, those who still had the _capacity_ to be on edge.

'It's alright, Reid.' JJ put on the poker face for which she was famous. This was the face that told a bald-faced lie to Morgan and Reid without them even realizing. This was the face that gave press conferences assuring the public that everything was okay when a serial killer was on the loose. This was the face that got through every day without breaking down. It was taking all her strength to keep it up.

Hand on his wound, she looked up at Hotch and Rossi. This was bad, there was no doubt about it. They were down to three able-bodied agents. Morgan and Prentiss were both still unconscious, and Reid definitely wouldn't be getting up for a while.

Her mind was racing, trying to think of a way out, all the while thinking that she wasn't cut out for this. She wasn't the prodigal genius, or the renowned profiler. She was the little girl from East Allegheny that knew how to kick a soccer ball. She had trauma in her life, sure. If you counted watching your father getting mauled to death by trees as character building.

As if her brain somehow knew that things were going to turn south, her life flashed before her eyes in snapshots. The woods. Her childhood. College. Joining the FBI. Roxbury, New Hampshire.

But then, things didn't turn south. JJ had a revelation.

They had been looking at this as an isolated incident, but she knew it wasn't. Her father had died in Benton, his body marked with claw wounds. Every image in her nightmares showed the beast that had torn her father's chest open, the woods being a simple association. The victims' wounds had been clean – no traces of bark. For the most part, they had been killed by the creature, rather than the trees themselves. They had been in these woods for hours, at least. Days, maybe. There was no reason for them to still be alive, if it was the trees that were the problem. But it wasn't the trees.

JJ's limited profiling experience told her that if this was really about protecting territory, then there was no need for the trees to be toying with them. To slaughter six FBI agents mercilessly would be enough deterrent to stop a lot of people from going into the woods for a long time. By all rights, they should be dead by now.

But they weren't, and that told them so much.

It wasn't the woods, it was the creature. The eight-foot tall beast with poison-laced claws that may or may not have been controlling the trees. It wasn't any ancient race bull. It was one creature. One monster. A serial killer, for all intents and purposes.

That was something JJ could deal with.

She pulled her hand away from Reid's shoulder, gesturing to Rossi that he should continue. Hotch looked at her, and on any other expression, the message would have been one of stoicism. But JJ had learnt to read the – admittedly very similar – looks of her supervisor, and she knew what this one said. "What are you doing?"

It said a lot about their relationship that he could read her so well, profiling aside. She still had that face on.

'Just follow my lead,' she whispered. She had gotten them into this mess. She would get them out. 'Aim for the head.'

Her hand unconsciously tightened at her pistol grip. 'Look, wherever – whatever – you are, come out!' she called, trying not to focus her attention on the sudden creasing of Hotch's brow. 'I want to make a deal.'


	13. Chapter 13

The Woods

Chapter Thirteen

'A bath,' said Emily suddenly, shaking Morgan from his reverie.

'What?' He felt dumb saying it; he didn't want to make it seem as though he wasn't paying attention to what we said.

'When we get back,' she shrugged. 'I could really go for a bath. '

He realized then that she was extrapolating upon their previous discussion, and tentative plans for pizza and a movie.

'God, I haven't had a bath in so long,' she continued. 'It's just been one case after the next. I just want to just lie back, and soak it all away.'

'Put that hot tub of yours to good use,' he grinned, only just then noticing that his hand had snaked its way around her hip.

She whispered something softly then, so soft that her words were barely audible. Almost as though she had suddenly been struck down with a bout of shyness. 'No good without company.'

At first, he was unsure whether or not she was trying to suggest something. All doubt vanished when she turned in his grip, so that their faces were parallel. Their lips just inches apart. Before he could close the distance between them, he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen.

'Did you…'

'Yeah,' she said, pulling away from him. 'I felt it. Morgan…'

He followed her gaze down, noticing the three lines of blood that were beginning to stain through his shirt.

'Is this it?' he wondered aloud. 'Are we going back? Or are we moving on?'

Emily's expression was a mixture of pain, horror and confusion. Unsurprising, considering that this was a relatively new experience for both of them.

'I don't know,' was all she said.

***

Aaron Hotchner's breath caught in his throat. This, to him, was far more terrifying than facing down an unsub. He could predict an unsub's behavior. He couldn't predict the behavior of this aggressive creature with poisoned claws. Truth be told, he was having a small amount of trouble interpreting JJ'S behavior. She obviously had some type of plan; had seen something that neither he nor Rossi had. Unsurprising, considering that, of all the team, she had the most experience with the creatures.

'_I want to make a deal_.'

Her words continue to echo in his mind, as though they're the last thing that he's ever going to hear her say. Just the thought of losing her makes him upset.

His hand gripped a little tighter on his Glock, eyes scanning the trees around him. Nothing yet. Was this part of the devious plan? To send them all spiraling into madness before killing them? A quick death was far too much to hope for. Such were the lives they led.

There. Behind the tree to his right.

The monster.

Was it the cause of all their problems? Just one of their problems. He didn't know. But he trusted JJ's judgment.

'Don't go hiding behind the trees,' JJ said, with some brusqueness in her voice. 'I know you've been controlling them. I know that your powers are nothing more than an illusion.'

It wasn't strictly true, Hotch thought. After all, the beast had incapacitated three of his agents. Not without some injury, though, he noted, as the creature stepped fully into his view. Blood oozed from two holes in its upper torso. It was not significantly weakened. Strong enough, at least, to keep up the illusion of a haunted forest.

'I want to make a deal,' JJ repeated. 'You know you can't defeat all of us. And we can't fight you without risking our lives either. Let the rest of them go. I should be enough to fulfill whatever sadistic desire you have.'

Hotch's heart skipped a beat. She didn't just say that. She didn't just offer herself up to the creature that was mercilessly slaughtering people in these woods. He couldn't accept that. He couldn't lose her.

'JJ…'

'This is my business, sir,' she said shortly, without looking back. It was her words as much as her tone that told Hotch the media liaison had ulterior motives.

'_Aim for the head._'

Right.

Her earlier words made sense now. She was distracting the thing, so that he and Rossi could get a clear shot off. To his credit, Rossi appeared to have grasped the situation much more quickly than Hotch. He had been so worried about JJ, that he hadn't quite realized she could take care of herself.

His stomach roiled, as the creature brushed a claw against JJ's cheek. She was standing so still, so silent.

She had quick reflexes. Partly from the FBI training, partly from athleticism. When she pulled away from the creature, it happened so fast that Hotch barely had time to think before he pulled the trigger.


	14. Chapter 14

**Title: **The Woods**  
Rating: **PG-13**  
Fandom: **Criminal Minds**  
Characters/Pairing: **JJ/Hotch; Morgan/Prentiss**  
Genre: **Drama/Horror**  
Summary: **If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone. A series of deaths in the forests of New Hampshire lead JJ to question the origin of her fears. Finding the answers may be far more deadly than any of them expect.

The Woods

Chapter Fourteen

JJ was afraid to look up. She was afraid that if she were to turn over, she would discover that Hotch and Rossi had failed to kill the creature. She half expected the claws to strike her at any moment.

She never felt them.

The first thing she felt was the hand on her shoulder.

'Remind me not to play poker with you,' Hotch's voice said, and she felt a great weight lifted.

She opened the eyes that she didn't even realize she'd been closing, and the first thing she saw was the creature's body. Dead, it seemed less terrifying, less foreboding. Still, this was the creature that had almost killed all of them.

She accepted the hand he held out, steadily getting to her feet. 'Everyone else learnt that lesson a long time ago,' she told the Unit Chief, with a forced smile on her face.

The world seemed a little bit brighter. Unsurprising, considering there was no longer a creature broadcasting illusions to confuse them. The sun shone through the canopy, and the woods seemed a little bit less terrifying.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rossi checking on Reid, Morgan and Prentiss. Reid was still conscious, his eyes wide with shock. Blood flowed freely from his shoulder wound.

'I've got it,' JJ said, rushing to the young genius's side. 'Check on the others.' With her help, Reid stood shakily. JJ wasn't entirely sure that _she_ was in any condition to be helping him; with the events of the day, she felt that collapsing was high on her list of things to do. Unfortunately, though, Morgan and Prentiss were both still unconscious. They wouldn't be walking out of the woods under their own steam.

That was when they heard the voices. Rossi was already carrying Prentiss, careful not to put any unnecessary pressure on her broken bones. Hotch's hand went straight to his holster. They were all running just that little bit paranoid. He relaxed slightly when the voice became clearer; it was one of the local police officers. JJ couldn't remember his name. Harris? Harrison? She'd only met him briefly, and, to be quite honest, her mind was occupied with other things. She'd spoken to him on the phone, though, hadn't she? Hardison. That's right.

He was calling their names, which made her wonder, just how long had they been gone.

'Over here,' Hotch called out, breaking the short silence the team had imposed upon themselves. Was this turn of events too good to be true? Was this just another one of the monster's illusions?

Part of her was satisfied that this was over. It didn't seem logical for the monster to lure them into a sense of security, when it would have been so much easier just to slaughter them all. Of course, it could well have been a sadist monster, wanting to mess with their minds even further before killing them. If that was the case, then there really wasn't much they could do about it.

The footsteps drew closer and closer, before a trio of harried looking officers came into view. JJ recognized their faces from the team's brief stop at the police station.

'What happened here?' Hardison asked, looking at the scene in wonder. Three injured agents, and a dead monster who looked like it had come straight from an episode of the _X-Files._

Hotch shook his head slightly, as if explaining was too much too soon. Instead, he asked, 'How long have we been gone?'

'Two days,' Hardison replied, squinting at the monster, as if he wasn't quite sure of what he was seeing. 'Your technical analyst – Ms. Garcia – she's beside herself. She threatened to wipe our entire system if we didn't find you. Could she really do that?'

There was an exchange of glances between the FBI agents. 'Probably,' conceded JJ. 'We're probably going to need an ambulance or two,' she added, staring at her injured colleagues.

'We've got a couple ready,' Hardison informed them, adding, slightly abashed, 'We were expecting the worst.'

JJ almost laughed. It was surprising the number of cases that ended in ambulance trips.

***

It was less than ten minutes later that JJ found herself alone with Hotch. Rossi had accompanied the ambulances to the nearest hospital.

'I'll drive you back to the hotel,' Hotch announced; it was more an order, than an offer. 'You need some rest.'

'Hotch, I-'

'Rossi will keep us updated on their condition. No-one thinks any less of you for not being there.

She couldn't quite stop the tears from springing to her eyes. How could she have screwed this up so badly?

Her heart almost skipped a beat when Hotch took her hand. He wasn't so much in Hotch mode, as he was in Aaron mode. 'JJ,' he said, his voice soft. 'This wasn't your fault. None of us could have known what was going to happen.'

She shook her head, but said nothing. No matter what he said, it would never wash away the feeling of guilt that was eating away inside of her.

'Let's go back to the hotel,' he reiterated. His hand gripped hers a little tighter. 'I'm here for you,' he said.

**A/N: Shouldn't be more than a couple of chapters left, and then maybe a sequel once I finish a few more fics we'll see. Yea or Nay?**


	15. Chapter 15

**Title: **The Woods**  
Rating: **PG-13**  
Fandom: **Criminal Minds**  
Characters/Pairing: **JJ/Hotch; Morgan/Prentiss**  
Genre: **Drama/Horror**  
Summary: **If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone. A series of deaths in the forests of New Hampshire lead JJ to question the origin of her fears. Finding the answers may be far more deadly than any of them expect.

The Woods

Chapter Fifteen

Prentiss blinked her eyes open slowly, vaguely aware of the dull ache in her right arm and lower abdomen. Her brow furrowed. Her memories were a little bit fuzzy, but she had the strangest recollection of having been attacked by monster trees. Though, that could have been the morphine she reasoned, noting the IV that fed into her left wrist.

'You're finally awake,' a voice said. She tried to focus her vision on the source of the noise, fairly confident that the brownish blur was Rossi.

'Am I?' she asked, slurring, 'That's good.' She felt the world slipping away from her again, and when she opened her eyes the next time, it was a little bit darker. Her arm and lower stomach were throbbing, the pain much more noticeable than before. Further investigation revealed a cast, and bandage of some variety wrapped tightly around her middle. Her mind was clear, though, which was something, at least. Nonetheless, she still had the memory of having been attacked by killer trees. And Morgan.

_Shit_. _Morgan._

She tried to sit up, letting out a moan at the pain that rippled through her body. It must have been a fairly loud moan, because there was a soothing presence at her side within seconds, easing her back down.

'Emily, can you hear me?' Rossi again. She nodded, and immediately regretted it, the small movement sending daggers through her torso.

''m fine,' she breathed, trying not to choke at the agony of even just talking.

'Your ribs are broken,' he told her, his voice an anchor to reality. 'Try not to move around so much.'

'Morgan?' she asked. Even if it hurt to ask, she wanted – _needed_ – to know.

'He's in better shape than you,' he revealed, with that trademark Rossi look on his face. 'And,' he added. 'You should know – Reid's been checked in as well.'

'I…trees?'

He laughed bitterly. 'Yeah,' he said. 'Trees.'

***

Morgan eyed the stitches on his chest warily, as his bandages were changed. The nurse gave him a serious look

'The scars will make you look more dangerous,' she told him, the solemnity betrayed only by the twitching of her lips.

'I'm not worried about scarring,' he said, which wasn't entirely true. It was no secret that Derek Morgan took pride in his appearance. The long jagged wounds would leave a permanent mark open his physique. In truth, he was more worried about the other ramifications of the day's events.

He was fairly sure that he was starting to fall for Emily. He'd first noticed her in that way when she'd joined the BAU, but had dismissed as a pipe dream. The ambassador's daughter didn't usually go for the thuggish juvenile delinquent. But then neither of them was really archetypical of their backgrounds. The hellish experience in the woods had spurred him into action. He was finally going to do something, instead of just letting it be a wasted opportunity.

Garcia slinked back in as the nurse left, tipping him a wink. She had jumped on the first flight out of Quantico, after news of their escape from the woods had made it back to the batcave. 'Hey gorgeous. I see I've got a bit of competition.'

'I think she just digs guys with scars.'

'Just as well. I wouldn't want to have to challenge her to a battle of honor.'

He grinned, but it wasn't the most cheerful of expressions. It had been a tough week so far, for all of the team. Garcia evidently seemed to sense the downturn in his mood.

'Emily's awake,' she said brightly, and Morgan's heart lifted. 'Your doctor says that you can go visit. We might even beat Rossi and Reid in the Wheelchair Olympics if the nurse gets back soon.'

They didn't quite beat Rossi and Reid to Emily's hospital room, which meant that he didn't have the chance to speak to her alone just yet. Rossi evidently picked up on his desire fairly quickly though, as he made a point of suddenly deciding to take Reid for a stroll around the hospital.

'Ooh, we can introduce him to the nurse that likes scars,' said Garcia excitedly. 'Maybe we can get genius-boy some action.' She rushed off after them. Morgan suddenly realized that he probably wasn't being as subtle as he had thought. Restrained had never been his style, anyway.

'We need to organize that pizza sometime,' said Emily, as soon as Garcia had left the room. She was grimacing, as she spoke. 'Maybe when I can move without needing a shot of morphine, though.'

'So that was real, huh?' Morgan mused. It had felt real, but that hadn't stopped him from fearing that maybe she hadn't experienced any of the bonding that he had.

'Something to do with the powers of the creature, I guess.' She made a slight movement as if to shrug, but then apparently thought better of it. 'Its powers of illusion seeping into our subconscious or whatever.'

'Good,' he sighed. 'Because I wanted to…' He stopped, realizing he had no idea what he was going to say. "Because I wanted to seduce you"? "Because I was wondering if you were interested in a session of passionate love-making"? No way, Morgan. 'I wanted to get that pizza,' he finished lamely, and she gave a short laugh.

'Morgan,' she said, with what he was fairly sure was exasperation. 'I am 80% sure that this is the Morphine talking, but if you want to ask me on a date, then just fucking ask.'

He grinned. And then he asked.

***

Hotch watched the rise and fall of JJ's chest. He had made the slightest detour on the way back from the woods, only to ensure that JJ got something to eat. Though it hadn't seemed that long to them, they'd been stuck in the woods for two days, and he wasn't going to be responsible for a fourth agent ending up in hospital. Three was bad enough.

They'd eaten in silence, JJ refusing to look up from her plate. She was more focused on poking her food with the fork, rather than actually eating it. She took a shower after that, washing the dirt from her body. No matter how hard she scrubbed, though, he knew that she would never be able to wash free the rest of what had happened. It was a part of her now. Engrained into her very being. In a way, it always had been. And that's why Hotch was there. Rossi was at the hospital making sure that the rest of the team was okay physically. Hotch was at the motel room making sure that JJ was okay mentally. Plus, he admitted, he did have some ulterior motives.

After she'd drifted off, he'd lain down in the room's second bed, hoping that recent events would be enough to send him to sleep as well. He'd managed a couple of hours worth of fitful sleep, before Rossi called, giving an update on the condition of Morgan, Prentiss and Reid. He'd been lying awake since then, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't going to leave; the possibility of JJ having a nightmare was fairly high, and he didn't want her to be alone. _He_ didn't want to be alone either.

He heard the soft whimpers from the other bed, and was on his feet in an instant.

'No….please, no.' She was whispering softly, her voice desperate, and to Hotch, that was more heartbreaking than if she had been screaming. He sat on the bed beside her, taking her hand in his.

'JJ…JJ, it's Aaron. I need you to wake up.'

'Hotch?' she asked, her voice small. She cleared her throat, and said, a little bit louder, 'What are you doing?'

'You were having a nightmare.'

She scoffed slightly. 'This whole situation is a nightmare.' She sat up, but didn't let go of his hand. He gave it a squeeze, which JJ reciprocated. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It's just…I don't know how I'm going to face any of the team again. I almost got them killed.'

Hotch gave an exasperated sound. 'JJ, please listen to me. This was _not _a normal case. There is _no _way you could have known that there was a monster in those woods. There was nothing you could have done. Nothing _any_ of us could have done.'

She nodded, eyes not meeting his. 'I know…it's just… Is it wrong that part of me feels relieved? Now that I know what really happened to my father, I feel some sense of…closure.'

'It's not wrong,' he affirmed, relishing the contact as she leaned into him. He hesitated before pressing a kiss into her hair.

'Hotch…'

He faltered, attempting to extricate his hands from hers. He didn't want her to feel uncomfortable. JJ, however, had different ideas, as she squeezed his hand even more tightly.

She turned to face him, their lips just inches from each other. He did let go then, but only to cup her jaw in his hand.

'Rossi called,' he told her. 'Everyone's going to be fine.'

Then he leaned in for the kiss, and it was just about everything he had been waiting for.

***

_Jennifer Jareau is thirty-one years old when she discovers the reason why she has feared the woods for so long._

_Finding out does not do much to alleviate those fears._

_She does know one thing, though._

_She isn't running anymore._

THE END.

A/N: Fun times. For those of you who are reading my other stuff, tell me which fic you have preferences towards being updated, so I know where to be directing the muse. No promises, of course, but it would be interesting to know.


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